book review

Beeswing: Losing my way and finding my voice 1967-1975

We saw Richard Thompson perform at the Sheldon a few weeks back. Except for a couple of songs near the end of the show, it was a solo performance. He played songs spanning his >50 year career with energy, wit and enthusiasm. At a couple of points, he read passages from his “book.”

This “book” was an autobiographical account of his early career, from 1967 just after he left school, until 1975. I just finished reading this book, and it was a fun and insightful look at the adventures of one of Britain’s great guitarists and singer-songwriters. I was aware of Thompson and his work with Fairport Convention, which he co-founded, although I only purchased a couple of Fairport CDs about 15 years ago. His concert reprised some of those songs, along with songs he recorded with his then-wife, Linda.

From the book, I came to better understand the musical influences of folk and rock in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, particularly in Britain. Fairport’s contribution to modern music was to electrify traditional English and Scottish ballads and eventually to write new music in that tradition. Thompson seems to have met and/or worked with most of the major British bands of the period, and we learn what it felt like before this music became top 40 clichés (and now “oldies"). The narrative is mostly short vignettes, often single paragraph anecdotes, gathered under general timeline themes.

Just before I started reading the book, I watched an hour-long Youtube video about Fairport that covered much of the period and included several of the stories Thompson tells in his book. I have to admit, the Youtube was very effective, since I didn’t know most of the songs mentioned (although in the Youtube, there are sections of silence where the sound was blocked for copyright reasons).

Since hearing Thompson perform, I went out and bought four of the CDs he recorded since Fairport. I’d heard some of the songs as covers first (Dimming of the Day; Vincent Black Lightning; Wall of Death), but it was fun to hear the originals. Thompson knows how to tell a story in song, and his guitar technique is extraordinary. I enjoyed reading how he got to this point.